Do we like them?

Do we like Antonio Tajani?

Our score: 5 out of 10. Some worrying moments on family politics and fascism-era remarks, balanced by public statements backing gay people and a spine in a fight with Trump.

Antonio Tajani is one of the founders of Forza Italia, the party Silvio Berlusconi built. He was a spokesman in Berlusconi's first government in the mid-1990s and later a senior figure in Europe. After Berlusconi died he took over as the party's leader in 2023, and he is Meloni's deputy PM and foreign minister.

The June 2026 stoush is the freshest drama. Trump said Meloni had begged for a photo at the G7 summit, Meloni's side pushed back, and Tajani cancelled a trip to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He later said Italy is not a subject of the US, while calling America a strategic ally and urging both sides to tone it down. Standing up for his boss and his country at some diplomatic cost is a point in his favour.

The ugliest moment on his record came in March 2019, when he was European Parliament president. He said in a radio interview that Mussolini's regime had positive elements. After MEPs from the left called for him to resign, he apologised, describing himself as an anti-fascist and saying he did not mean to play down a totalitarian regime. An apology only counts if the behaviour stays changed, and the record I could read doesn't settle that.

On the harm check, it's patchy. In 2019 LGBTI Intergroup MEPs wrote to him urging him not to back the World Congress of Families conference, which they said was known for anti-women's-rights and anti-LGBTI positions. In 2024, though, he argued that gender theory should not be confused with gay rights, which at least separates the two. Reports also say he has publicly hoped same-sex relations get decriminalised worldwide, but I couldn't open that page, so treat it as a lead.

I couldn't open full articles this round, so the court record and allegations boxes are empty. That's a gap in my checking, not a clean bill of health. Nothing in what I did read points to a pattern of mistreating staff or colleagues, and I found no climate-denial or anti-vax campaigning from him, but I didn't get deep enough to be sure.

So: a centre-right establishment figure who can act like a grown-up in a crisis, with a couple of ugly moments and an LGBTQ+ record that is mixed rather than hostile. We'd keep an eye on him rather than cheer. He'd sit in the middle of the pack.